Absolutely essential that you personally, taking along
Joffe, if necessary, to help you, should not only verify
and expedite but personally bring up the reinforcements
to Lugansk and the Donets Basin generally, as otherwise
the disaster will undoubtedly be tremendous and scarcely
remediable. If you need one, take a mandate from the Kiev
Council of Defence. We shall undoubtedly perish unless
we clear the Donets Basin completely in a short time.
Provisionally, until Rostov has been taken, we must be
diplomatic with Makhno’s troops, sending Antonov there in
person, and making him personally responsible for
Makhno’s troops. Telegraph detailed reply.

Notes

[1]
L. B. Kamenev was then the representative of the Council of
Defence at the Southern Front. Lenin sent the telegram to him in
connection with the news that Lugansk had been taken by the
whiteguards on May 4, 1919.